Friday, 23 December 2011

The employee areas of the apartment building seem the best place to investigate first. You head down the corridor, finding a kitchen and a washroom – you decide to check out the washroom. Inside, you find a locker room with doors leading to male and female shower facilities.

Checking the lockers, you find some cleaner's overalls. As you don your new-found disguise, a man exits the showers – he's not happy that you're stealing his uniform, and attacks you. Taking a few hits, you manage to subdue him, hiding his unconscious form in a toilet cubical.

Exiting the washroom, you bump into another cleaner. Maintaining your cool, you chat with the man, moving on as soon as possible. Grabbing a cleaner's trolley and mop, you head out into the plush corridor.

Entering the lift, you decide to check floor number three – hopefully you'll find Coates' apartment (number 34) on that floor. Checking the numbers on the doors, you work out that you actually need to go to floor six. Sticking with your cleaner disguise, you push your trolley back to the lift.

You meet a female employee as you arrive on floor six, but she is fooled by your disguise. Finding Martin Coates' apartment, you knock on the door – no answer, so you pick the lock.

Once inside the apartment, you find Coates dead on the floor. He's been stabbed in the back of the head, the murder weapon being the gold pen you picked up earlier and left at Dr Obadiah's lab. Someone is trying to frame you.

You jam the door shut and search Coates' body, finding some cash and his air-car key fob. You try to remove the incriminating pen, but it won't budge from the dead man's skull. Thuds resound on the apartment door – the security have been alerted. In a moment of inspiration, you activate the emergency summon function on Coates' air-car – a possible escape route.

The air-car hovers into view, floating obediently next to the building. Using your gun and a nearby chair, you shatter the window just as the security guards crash through the door. Jumping out into the night sky, you almost miss the car, grasping hold with your fingertips. You struggle onboard and consider your next course of action – dump the car and make a run for it on foot, or use the vehicle to put some distance between you and the crime scene?

Note: there will be no new story updates until January 3rd 2012 – Vote no.58 will stay open until 8:00am GMT on the above date.

Hello Tweet RPG players! Hope you're enjoying playing Time to Die as much as I'm enjoying writing the story. It's quite different to the previous two adventures – not so much combat, more interaction. Always fun to try new things!

With Christmas and New Year approaching, I thought it would be good to take a break from adventuring – I'm sure you'll all be too busy opening presents and consuming copious amounts of food to play Tweet RPG! Plus it will be nice to have a brief rest from daily story updates, as much as I love writing! With that in mind, voting session no.58 (opening Friday 23rd at 8:00pm GMT) will stay open until Tuesday 3rd of January, 2012. No new updates from that point until the new year.

I'd like to wish you all a very merry Christmas, and also to thank you for supporting and contributing to Tweet RPG. As a writer, it's so rewarding to have people engaging with your stories and helping to bring something fresh to the creative process. Tweet RPG Warriors, I salute you!

Saturday, 17 December 2011

You attempt to pick the lock, but are unsuccessful & manage to jam it. Taking the next best option, you ram into the door, forcing it open. Inside you find a messy storeroom filled with junk, as well as a broken food chiller – a strange noise emits from the large container...

Investigating inside the chiller, you find an injured man, bound by his hands and feet. He begs you to release him. You ask for more info on why the man is imprisoned, but he become agitated. Before you can take action, you feel a shotgun barrel press against the back of your head.

Your unseen assailant orders you to state what you're doing – you comply, explaining the situation. When you mention your old friend No-Hands, the man with the gun relaxes – he lowers his weapon, explaining that he's captured the injured man to claim a bounty on his head.

The man agrees to help – he sells you a face-jack (a high-tech mask) and informs you that CygNet have put out a bounty for your capture. You leave his shop, disguised.

Considering your current leads, you decide to follow up the scrap of metal you found in Dr Obadiah's lab. Popping into a nearby electronics store, you discover that the metal is from a 'flesh scale', high density armour-skin – a cyborg enhancement. You head towards Cannervale, the cyborg district, to find more answers...

Your path into Cannervale is blocked by a police barricade – there's a riot going on between the authorities and militant cyborgs. You decide not to get involved, opting to check out CygNet Research employee Martin Coates instead of the scrap of metal.

Coates' dwelling is located in an affluent part of town. Standing in front of his apartment building, you decide to check out a catering van parked at the side. There's a man unloading crates of food – you engage him in conversation, and bluff your way inside the building. Where should you head – towards the apartments or have a better look around the back area?

Monday, 12 December 2011

Time to get aggressive. You stride across the room and snatch the phone out of Morris' hands, pinning him against the wall. You interrogate the frightened man – he reveals that project 'Odin's Spear' was a military contract for developing advanced targeting methods, but Dr Obadiah was using the budget for his own means. Morris claims to know nothing about Obadiah's assistant...

Two security guards enter the room. You engage them in hand-to-hand combat and defeat them easily. Leaving the office, you head for the fire escape. A burly guard blocks your path, but you utilise your superior agility to dodge past him.

Outside on the fire escape gantry, the wind rips into you as air vehicles fly past. You begin to descend down the stairs, but are cut off by more security guards heading upwards. Kicking open a maintenance hatch, you climb onto the outside of the gantry. The guards begin to shake the wire mesh you're clinging onto – you won't be able to hold on much longer...

With a wild leap, you jump out onto a passing air-car. Tumbling backwards, you grab hold of the rear aerofoil, wrenching your arm viciously. The vehicle plummets to the ground, swerving out of control, but saved from danger by the high-tension safety nets. You stumble off into an alleyway and bandage up your arm.

Deciding to throw off any potential tail from CygNet Research, you head on in search of a disguise. You contact an old friend, Don 'No-Hands' Gretch, who suggests a guy in the local area who could help out. You make your way to the small rundown shop that No-Hands directed you to, and opt to look round the back for a less obvious entrance. Finding a locked door, you've got a few options: pick the lock, force the door open, or search for another way in?

Saturday, 10 December 2011

Hello Tweet RPG players! Just a note about a small change to the Time to Die gameplay.

The lock-picking gameplay mechanism has worked really well so far - glad to see everyone enjoying the anagrams! However, I think it will work better if you aren't aware of each other's anagram answers - I want everyone to have a chance to solve the puzzle without accidently seeing the solution.

From now on, if you want to choose a lock-picking option, you must send your anagram answer to me in a direct message, and your actual vote as a tweet. Don't worry if you forget and send your answer as a tweet - this is all for fun! I know it's a bit more complicated than before, but we'll see how it goes.

Hope you're all enjoying the adventure so far, I'm having loads of fun writing it! If you have any comments & suggestions, or feedback on the lock-picking mechanism, feel free to send me a tweet or comment below.

Sunday, 4 December 2011

You decide to ride the monorail across the city to the CygNet Research headquarters. Whilst on the train, you witness an altercation between a young man and a construction worker. Opting to take a back seat, you watch as the worker attempts to assault the youth, only to be repelled by the boy's cyborg body enhancements.

Exiting the carriage, you head towards the main entrance to the CygNet building. Tricking the receptionist into leaving her desk, you make your way inside. In the precious seconds that the receptionist is gone, you find a visitor pass and a building map in her desk. You also check her console for info on Dr Obadiah & his assistant, making a strange discovery – the scientist hasn't had an assistant for a few years...

Taking the stairs, you make your way up the building, finding the right floor for Dr Morris' office. As you make your way there, you pass Morris in the corridor. You opt to ignore him for now, taking the chance to uncover some clues in his office whilst he is out of the picture.

Once inside Dr Morris' office, you find that he's left his console switched on and unprotected. Taking this opportunity, you discover that Dr Obadiah was working on a project codenamed 'Odin's Spear'. The project has recently been discontinued due to lack of positive results, and a man named Martin Coates has been given the funding that was assigned to Obadiah.

Whilst you're still sitting at the desk, Morris appears in the doorway. You attempt to bluff your way out, stating that you're with tech support – this seems to placate the scientist. He asks for some help with a corrupted file – you offer to take the document away with you, but Morris states that's against company policy.

You're about to leave when Dr Morris gets suspicious and decides to find out more about your visit, calling the tech department. Your cover's about to be blown – what will you do?